When Water Becomes Air
by Rabbitprint
Summary: Spoilers for 5.0 MSQ, set pre-game. Ascian fic, Igeyorhm POV. "I built whales, and these people are killing them," is the first thing that Igeyorhm says to Lahabrea when he arrives.


"I built whales, and these people are killing them," is the first thing that Igeyorhm says to Lahabrea when he arrives.

To his credit, Lahabrea only responds to her dispassionate announcement with a blink. He lands on the Fourth dressed in distraction, with his mask off and an aetheric cage leashed to his left wrist like a soap bubble - en route, she knows, to check in on her before removing some king from office on the Ninth. The man plants his feet mulishly on the beach, boots shifting in the sand as the portal relinquishes him to the shard's gravity. The sphere drifts aimlessly beside him, bearing the heavy coils of the serpent trapped within.

Without waiting for any explanation, he glances out towards the calm, placid waters - bereft of any vast wavekin stirring in the distance - and remarks dryly, "They seem to have done a more than adequate job already."

Igeyorhm sighs, closing her eyes in a silent prayer to Zodiark for strength. Already, she wishes she had held her tongue, or at least kept her own mask on to shroud her expression. "They're designed for a specific ecological niche, intended to balance a shrimp population which would otherwise choke the deltas, and drain too much aether from the waters for other wavekin to survive. Their life cycle is designed for naught else. Death disperses their aether back into the ocean directly - they're not even edible."

Unconcerned, Lahabrea tilts his head in mocking expectation for more. The spell-cage bobs at the motion; the serpent within resettles its weight grudgingly. She spares it a sympathetic glance - tolerating Lahabrea is a chore, on either side of the prison - and turns away, back towards the iridescent undulations of the sea. "When our star was sundered, I fully expected them to have been lost. Imagine my surprise to find them thriving here. Unfortunately," she continues, "the nearby fishing villages discovered the same once they began harvesting the shrimp as a delicacy. First they tried to capture the whales to sell as pets, only to discover that they dissolve once separated from the ocean. Then they set up warded nets, hoping to starve the whales to death - not realizing that their numbers are forced to increase so long as the shrimp colonies remain overblown, dying in agony even as more are born. Now, the villagers are simply slaughtering as many of the wavekin as they can reach, in hopes of extinguishing them all. They call it _cultivation_ of natural resources." Scorn boils out of her, a kettle's hiss of protest. "Hydaelyn's faction shattered our _world _to keep their souls from the mere _chance _of being considered in such a fashion for lord Zodiark - and yet here these mortals are, performing that very same act upon anything and everything around them, and with far less respect."

Judging by the deliberately bored glance he shoots her way, Lahabrea refuses, stubbornly, to be riled by routine injustice. "Surely any wavekin of size would be able to breach such barriers," he reasons. "Crystal-warded or no, the ocean _is_ their domain. The sheer tide of their bodies should suffice to tear enough of the nets to discourage the village, and any others who might seek to imitate their profits."

It is too late now to take back her complaints. Far faster to demonstrate. "Here," Igeyorhm explains, striding towards the shoreline. Waves rush around her ankles, beating in a steady rhythm as she bends down, dipping her fingers into the saltwater before making a single, long whistle.

At first, there is no answer. Then, a tiny splash bursts from the ocean's surface, far out from the shore. It repeats a second time, heading directly towards her with percussion bursts of spray, until the origin finally comes into view: a small, rotund shape, no larger than a common moogle, bobbing through the waves.

As it swims closer, willing to beach itself on the sands in its enthusiasm, she forges into the ocean uncaringly. Cold water reaches her shins and then laps higher, pouring into her boots and plastering her robes to her legs. She ploughs through the tide directly until she can scoop up the tiny grey creature, careful not to damage the long, rippling fins which trail from its rotund body. Like damp gauze, the webbing clumps together in folds of iridescent silk, as translucent and frail as a puff of mist. The whale's skin dents under even the careful pressure of her fingertips: soft, rubbery, and harmless.

It squeaks happily as she picks it up, recognizing the aether of its creator through pure heredity instinct, and tries to roll in a belly-rub against her hands.

She sloshes back out of the ocean with some difficulty, shaking water out of her clothes. "Take a look," she declares, presenting the little creature to Lahabrea directly, an ancient prototype surviving against all odds.

Lahabrea weighs it with a frown, likely attempting to recall the wavekin from the millions of other concepts that had been tested in Akadaemia Anyder. Then the design itself catches his interest, and he absently sets the cage leashed to his wrist aside, tethering it in place in midair so that he can spare both hands for the miniature wavekin. With that, he reaches out at last, but there is nothing brusque about his motions - only a focused interest, pure and respectful as he loses himself in analysis. His gloved hands are gentle as he takes the creature from her, lifting it closer so that he can examine its flesh.

"Ah," he remarks after a moment. For once, his voice rings clear, a single note that is calmer than anything else she has heard him speak in years, all habitual scorn absent. "You've used one of the fissioning templates. Interesting."

The whale chirps as he turns it over carefully, wriggling trustingly against his grip. Despite the years, Lahabrea's talents have not grown dull, and he reads off the construct's specifications as readily as if Igeyorhm had printed them on the whale's belly in letters two-ilms tall. "Specialized diet, no natural predators. Their only defense mechanism is escape. They provide the necessary generation matrix directly via their own forms, duplicating as long as there is sufficient aether in their environment. Should there be insufficient aether due to appropriate population control, their own excess numbers will dissolve naturally as well, with no need for external intervention." He looks at her, and suddenly it is as if they are back in Amaurot again, reviewing specimen arrays together in a workroom - he sounds like their _Speaker _again, like _himself_, and not a crazed zealot hoping that the world might catch on fire of its own accord. "These are always exceedingly tricky to incorporate without disturbing an existing ecosystem. 'Tis equally impressive that they have lasted so long while remembering their intended purpose. So many of our other patterns have gone astray, popping in and out of existence without wondering what manner of hand first set them into motion at all. This is a _masterful _accomplishment, Igeyorhm."

The compliment warms her unexpectedly, coming from a world and time far away. She wants to bask in the words, to accept the praise as one crafter to another, evaluated and appreciated by professional skills - but instead, Igeyorhm forces herself to remember the present. "Not anymore."

She sees the wince before it comes: in the stiffening of Lahabrea's shoulders, a grimace in his teeth, as if he has woken from a dream of open meadows only to find the cold, damp walls of an oubliette still trapping him underground. Reminded of their circumstances, the man straightens up with a scowl. He shoves the whale back into her arms. "Bah! You know what to do, Igeyorhm. Grant them limbs and teeth, and send them out to devour the villagers. Or else graft wings upon their frames, and lift them into the skies to feast upon some excess population of gnats. This shard is not even the Source - it does not _matter _if they perish now or later, Igeyorhm. They _will _die."

She weathers his bile, aware of the logic beneath, though it is nearly lost within a coating of nihilism. "I will _not _change them." Of their own accord, her arms wrap tightly around the tiny lifeform, which squeaks against her grip. "I designed their concept together with Mitron."

This stops him. She knew it would. Even though eons have passed since he last sculpted something new, Lahabrea was - _is_ \- one of Amaurot's most passionate creators. In his years of service alone, he had shared in the collaboration of more concepts than most Ascians would ever dream of weaving in their entire immortal lives.

He has lost far more in the sundering.

Stripped of his disdain, Lahabrea exhales in a slow sigh, mouth settling back into a line both resigned and weary.

"If he has any sense, then Mitron will have already given them up for dead," he offers eventually.

It is as close as Lahabrea can get to being kind, these days. Igeyorhm knows the monumental effort it must have taken him to even get _that _far, with all their hearts burnt down and bitter. Even so, she cannot not help but want to bleed him in return, to push him _away_ from the wounded place within her that he has opened up with his words, his brute-blind efforts that force her to look directly at truths she would rather ignore.

"That's new," she remarks, finally calling attention to the spell-cage, and the elegant lines of the scalekin within. "Your serpent. Is that how you mean to kill your little king?"

He frowns down at it, and then at her, already guessing at the direction of her inquiry. "Yes."

"Not your own design, I imagine?"

Lahabrea's eyes narrow further. "No."

The smirk feels like a loss on her part, even though she forces herself to keep it fixed in place. "Give Elidibus my regards," she drawls lightly, turning away with deliberate insolence as she sweeps into the ocean, and sends the whale back home.

* * *

She had met Mitron long before either one of them had earned their names of office, back when they were in their early schooling paths, and after she had failed her first attempt at the Intermediate Stimuli Trials. He had not been Mitron then; she had not been Igeyorhm, but both of them had already been possessed by fierce dreams which had driven them relentlessly forward.

In Igeyorhm's case, her performance was as focused and unrelenting as her magicks. Dissolution had always been her greatest strength. She had galloped through lessons on dismantling patterns, subdividing shapes into spatial blocks, seeing how creation and destruction began the same way at their root. Destruction was always the first, necessary step, unmaking a resource and reverting it to potential. After that came Creation: a purposeful transformation of the raw energy at hand, one life flowing into another, one opportunity making the next. Creation was the art of guided change. Yet, without an understanding of the whole - the Underworld, the community, the entire star - that act, too, would only bring about disharmony if its consequences were not understood.

It always took more energy to create than to destroy. It was far harder work.

The Beginner Stimuli Trials had been simple, of course. Igeyorhm had trained herself well to keep her attention sharp through the basic distractions of noises, lights, smells; she had ignored the giggling secrets being whispered behind her shoulder, the illusionary laughter of friends in another room, the scent of fresh honeybutter bread being laid out upon a table. The riotous commotion of other children playing had been the merest tug upon her thoughts. Igeyorhm had blocked them out simply by ignoring anything that was not a direct part of her body, drawing a mental line between her identity and her surroundings, where everything undesirable was not allowed in.

Her strategy had no effect upon the Intermediate Trials. Those ones had involved pain.

She had gone to the testing room with her breath already tight in her chest, trying to quash the nervousness in her belly before it could dominate her thoughts. The plain white chamber was bare of all furnishings save two chairs and a table. A creation matrix floated lazily in the middle, flecks of aether glittering against its surface as nearby currents brushed and parted around it like a rock in a stream.

The instructor was hooded and masked like any other Ascian, waiting patiently for Igeyorhm to approach and take her seat. The simple layers of their clothing provided a comforting familiarity: communal, shared, and constant. Gentle fingers carefully took Igeyorhm's left hand into their grip, holding her steady with both thumbs hovering over the back of her wrist, barely brushing the skin.

"You will have as many chances as you need in order to overcome this test." The instructor's voice was a soothing harmony, unworried and unrushed. "There will be no true injury to your person - only the facsimile of such a sensation, conveyed through aetheric illusion. Speak once you are ready."

Igeyorhm nodded even before the instructor finished explaining, as if hoping to sprint so quickly into the Trial that it would be over and done before she could even register it. Pain itself was not an unfamiliar concept. Childhood games had already given her the usual share of scrapes and bumps. All of the students in her classes had already tested themselves independently in their own small ways, examining each bump and bruise from playing together, prodding the spots curiously before their injuries were soothed away by spell and ointment. Pain, Igeyorhm had already decided, was a mere distraction as well. "I understand. You have my permission to act."

"What is your focal image?"

"A snowfield," she answered promptly. Even just saying it began the visualization in her mind: a rolling plain which stretched out to the furthest horizon, its drifts unmarred, its sloping curves shaped naturally by wind alone. The sky above was blue. There was a layer of powdery flakes resting across the fragile crust of ice, doing little to dull the diamond-bright glitter. She could already hear the crunch that a footstep's weight would make upon it, breaking through the delicate shell and sinking ankle-deep.

"Very good." With that, the instructor had pressed the pads of their thumbs firmly against Igeyorhm's wrist. "Let us begin."

The concept matrix hung in the air between them, a slice of color chopped into a glittering, triangular wedge. The pattern inscribed within it was basic: a painted teacup, filled with plain water. Two states of matter, the former created from multiple materials and temperature changes. The latter, a pure element, clean and distinct.

As the vessel, the cup needed to be considered first. Before it could be finished and glazed, it was first shaped from earth and water, heat and clay - steps which now called upon the structures that Igeyorhm had so dutifully memorized. The chain of creation was easy enough to begin with. Her knowledge of the craft was sound; she had studied the meeting of centripetal and centrifugal forces, and now spun her aether around a central point like a potter's wheel.

_Earth_, she thought. Water. Heat. The walls of the cup swirled into being with pearled grace, symmetrical and solid. Earth. Water.

_Heat_.

The pressure on the back of Igeyorhm's wrist blazed suddenly, twin white-ember holes searing through her skin. Her concentration faltered, rewinding backwards to fixate on kilns and pottery, cups baking within their ovens until every drop of moisture had been leeched from their innards. The pain felt different than her playtime accidents, or even the practice exercises they had rehearsed in advance; it felt _wrong_ when she couldn't simply run to an adult for healing, as if some rule of nature had abandoned her, thinking her a threat instead of a friend. The only thing she could try to do was ignore the sensation, but even _that _wasn't working - and now, it was starting to spread.

Her hand bucked instinctively. Her breathing ricocheted faster despite herself. Above the table, the shape of the teacup shimmered like a melting mirage. The fire was coming from both sides of her arm now, like a pair of molten shears whose blades were closing inevitably together, intent on severing her hand like a snipped thread.

Her imagination lurched further. Suddenly, she couldn't stop thinking about fire burning all the way through her wrist, the layers of her skin opening up around a molten bore hole whose edges were a perfect circle of blackened char. She couldn't _stop_ it, and the pain was refusing to vanish from her awareness the more she struggled to banish it. It was out of her control - it had never been _within _her control, it would only keep burning and burning until it whittled straight through her wrist, plucking her hand away like a crumbling dab of clay -

The shriek came out of her before she even knew she had enough breath in her lungs to make it. On the table, the aether unraveled and burst. Shards of unstructured energy curled away like burning leaves even as the cup twisted in obedience to her thoughts, transforming into new, grotesque forms that were crisped with blood, bulging and splitting with tiny limbs as Igeyorhm witnessed her own mutilation in miniature.

_A snowfield_, she suddenly heard someone say, distant through her terror. _Imagine a snowfield. Follow my words. Envision the snow._

Locked in place by another's control, the aether froze in midair, transmuted into crystal flecks which slowly bleached away in color, and then refracted into flakes. The portrait of it broke through Igeyorhm's terror. She blinked, shuddering, even as she registered the now-cool touch of the instructor's fingers on her skin, wiping away everything save the memory of the pain which had been there.

* * *

Two of her mothers had sighed when Igeyorhm came home with the news, reminding her soothingly that it had taken each of them over two dozen attempts to pass their own Intermediate levels. Igeyorhm was already skilled in so many aspects of aether manipulation - and there was, of course, no reason for competition among their people, no cause to compare one's self to another and feel lacking. Everyone had a place. Everyone was loved.

The third had kissed Igeyorhm's brow, and sent her out to meditate in the gardens near their home.

There was no time restriction set upon any of Igeyorhm's lessons; each pupil had their own individual educational plan, independent of age. Slower, some said, was better. The purpose was not simply to best a task and deliver a finished product - each student needed to come to an understanding of their own limitations and then monitor themselves through their recovery, understanding not only their own reactions in the moment, but also the aftermath of emotionally processing them. Immortality provided every Ascian with all the time they needed to grow. It also gave them the responsibility of taking that time seriously, learning the shape of themselves before they went on to shape the world.

And if Igeyorhm could not master any particular lesson, she knew, there were still assistive tools available. Amaurot kept thousands of simpler matrices and cubi available for those who needed support for their lower creative potential. Self-awareness was more crucial than raw power; nothing was keeping her back from developing the former. The only expectations came from Igeyorhm herself.

Which meant, of course, that she had no excuses for stopping here.

She knew better than to try and sneak off and practice letting herself get injured. There were training lessons for that in abundance, and play areas to get scuffed up safely - and anyway, her mothers would notice her aether being damaged, even if she could hide it from her teachers. There was no purpose in suppressing it. No Ascian was meant to suffer alone.

Pain concealed only hurt the ones who loved you. That had been one of their early lessons too.

She had _known_ all this, and yet, sitting in the gardens - tucked into a small grove shadowed naturally by the flowering bushes densely packed throughout the garden, knees curled against her chest - Igeyorhm had wanted, badly, to pretend that no one would notice if she allowed herself to stay hurt.

So lost had she been in her brooding that she had willfully ignored the rustle of leaves drawing closer and closer, until finally an elbow, and then the rest of a sleeve poked through into her sanctuary, followed by an entire tower of sketchpads being forced through the bushes.

Alarmed, Igeyorhm jerked her chin up, squinting at the wobbling stack of papers tilting preciously towards the ground. The hood of another Ascian poked through next - close to her height, much younger than a full adult. Fabric snagged on one of the branches, refusing to be dislodged even as the visitor stumbled forward, until it finally was yanked off entirely to reveal a disheveled student near to her own age.

Equally started, the boy fumbled not to drop his papers as he reached up to untangle his robe; one broad notebook slid merrily off anyway, bouncing lightly against the grass. "Misbegotten things!" he cursed, and then flushed at the outburst. "My apologies, friend. Are you practicing here as well?" He blinked down at her, his round face brightening with interest. "Should I depart?"

Igeyorhm had already scooped up the notebook and was angling it in his direction, eyeing the other student balefully. "I'm resting." Despite herself, her own curiosity jerked her attention down to the notebook's cover, helpfully decorated with dozens of eels twining together in ornamental coils. "Recovering from a stimulus test. There's a full week left of waiting before I'm allowed back to group studies, so there's no practice to interrupt."

This only had the effect of making her visitor more interested, not less. "Advanced Emotional Response?" he asked. Then, when she shook her head, "The Intermediate ones, with pain? Those got me for nearly ten _years_. I kept passing one element and then failing it again the next year. The teachers kept having to remind me that no one bests them all the first time through."

Hearing confirmation of the statistics was poor comfort. "The second Lahabrea did," Igeyorhm countered mulishly, hiking up the hem of her robe so that she could scratch at her shin restlessly.

Another notebook threatened to escape; the boy pawed for it, lurching forward to try and keep the stack upright. He sank to a crouch as the rest of the papers gave up all stability and scattered through his arms, puddling in a haphazard disaster on the ground between them. "The second Lahabrea _also _created a fully functioning residential tower entirely out of room-temperature butter for her final graduation matrix. I read the schematics," he added, frowning at the memory, distress lingering queasily in his voice. "'Twas awe-inspiring, but you shouldn't feel the need to repeat the same accomplishment. In fact, ah... I don't think _anyone_ should."

Stifling a smile at the reminder, Igeyorhm folded her legs down, sitting up straighter so she could consider her impromptu conversation partner. Grudgingly, she could feel the knot inside her begin to unwind, mollified somewhat by the other student's fellowship. "How did the Intermediate Levels manifest for you? Which gave you the most difficulty?"

Without any sense of formality, the boy pulled off his mask and tossed it aside onto the grass, revealing the sharp bridge of his nose and a pair of heavy eyebrows. The grin he gave to her was rueful. "_All_ of them. With Fire, I tried to draw the feeling into myself, and ignited all my clothes. With Wind, I thought my lungs would turn inside out, and frightened myself for nearly half a year with my own breathing. I'd wake up at night, and mistake any delayed exhalations for smothering." He shrugged with a helplessly exaggerated motion, both hands surrendering to the sky. "The only one I performed halfway decently on was Water, and even _then_ I erred, trying to count up how many protobramas I might be able to fit into the room. My proctor gave me points for creativity, but I still couldn't complete the task."

With that, however, the boy's mood shifted even as Igeyorhm watched. He clenched a fist proudly, straightening up with determination. "But I refuse to be stopped here. I'm studying to be the next Mitron, you see! As it remains my dream, so too is it my responsibility to make sure to work hard, and see it become reality. Even... well." His shoulders deflated, the sudden moment of bravery dimmed. "Even _if_ it takes time to find the right path for me to get there."

The reminder of their lessons should have been grating on Igeyorhm's freshly-raw nerves - but his earnestness had the opposite effect, and she found herself relaxing, leaning back against the solid weight of the tree behind her. "Is Mitron passing on the title so soon?"

The boy shrugged. "I've no idea. Not for a long while, I should hope. I need all the practice I can get before they step down. I _did_ hear that Lahabrea is starting upon a Final Design, however." Gathering the folds of his robes out of the way, he finally sat down properly on the ground, resettling his sketchpads with far more care than he had given his mask. "Can you imagine having to select only a single concept to be your parting masterwork? To gift the whole of your aether to one final construct, and pass into the Underworld knowing that your life essence will continue to provide for the city, while your soul will grant another Ascian a new beginning? I don't know if I could _ever _come up with something that grand. Not like a Speaker can." Shaking off his awe with a grin, he considered her with open curiosity. "What about you? Who do you plan to be?"

Startled by the quicksilver darting of the would-be Mitron's attention, Igeyorhm frowned in thought. "No one," she answered honestly. "I mean, I've never given it any consideration before, let alone a seat with the Convocation. How can I possibly know what I'm best suited for when I don't even know my own capacities yet? I need to _achieve_ something first, and then I'll know who I am." She paused then, frowning in consideration of the ambition that had been presented to her. "Why _Mitron?_"

It sounded unpardonably rude when she asked it like that; she hadn't meant to insult, but there was no harm intended in the question. Still, the directness was blunt enough that she tried not to wince, wondering what any of her mothers would have suggested instead.

Luckily, the boy's optimism didn't dim. "'The ocean is the soup of life,'" he quoted reverently, eyes closed, head tilting back as he uttered his speech to the sky. "So sayeth the first Mitron of all."

Igeyorhm knitted her fingers together in her lap, secretly relieved that he had not mistaken her tone. "You make it sound like _dinner_, not a wellspring of inspiration," she pointed out. "His line about diversity has a _much _better ring to it."

"_Everyone_ repeats that one. Everyone!" Opening his eyes just so he could roll them, the boy laughed at his own display of vexation. Then he sobered. "It _is_ hard to reach those same heights, though. The first Mitron created _hundreds_ of aetheric tools for the sole purpose of traveling safely into the ocean's depths, and observing its creatures undisturbed in their natural homes. He voyaged to _their_ world - he didn't study them safely in academic halls, in shallow pools and glass tanks. I've... begun to wonder if it's impossible for me to match that same brilliance. That I simply lack the potential, no matter how much I try."

The dangers of such a phrase - taught to them all as a basic rote warning - burst through Igeyorhm's hesitations at last, hauling her the rest of the way out of her gloom before she even realized her own alarm. "Don't _say_ that!" she blurted, aghast. "If you do, your subconscious will believe it, and then it will become fact for you forever because you'll create it _yourself_."

Undeterred, the boy promptly thumped one hand affectionately on a sketchbook; the inked faces of dozens of alligators stared balefully back. "I know. I'm here to re-evaluate my own progress too," he admitted, nodding towards the paper-born chaos surrounding his knees. "Whenever they let me in the practice workrooms, I can't stop thinking about all the ideas I want to make. Then all my concepts run together in one vast mess. So my teachers mean for me to record the basic forms now, and go back to them later once I have the technical skills to see them to completion. The only problem is, the more I document, the more I come up with _new_ ones. Half a year gone, and I'm still no closer than when I started."

Igeyorhm only shook her head stubbornly at the dilemma. "Then show me your concepts, and have yourself organize them that way. Explaining them to someone else will force you to slow down naturally," she rationalized, her own failure overshadowed by an even worse mistake being set before her - one that there was still time to correct, if only the boy listened. She leaned forward, scrambling onto one knee so that she could help straighten the nearest pile of sketchbooks, swollen with stray diagrams that had been stuffed between the pages. "We are _Ascians_. We learn best from each other, with one another's help. Remember?"

Doubt mingled with hope on Mitron's face as she watched, like two armies who weren't sure if they were even still at war. He glanced down at his scattered journals, as if already daunted by the task of roping them in.

"All right," he said at last, looking back up towards her with a grin. "Together it is, then."

* * *

She went to see him the next day, the boy who was not-yet-Mitron - but who would become so someday, yearning with every drop of his being to shape himself into his own dream. His sketches unfurled like embroidered leaves upon the grass, digging a new ocean around them. The paper waters were dense with imagination. Each ilm was a gyre; every journal, a tidepool. Sinking into Mitron's world felt like an endless descent into new discoveries - but into chaos, too, of ideas without harmony, designs breeding for the sake of novelty rather than purpose.

When it came time for Igeyorhm to return to classwork along with the rest of her peers, it was a relief to confirm that she wasn't alone in her lack of success. Not one of her peers had passed. Half the students had performed so poorly on the Intermediate Trials that they struggled even to voice the ways in which their fears had manifested; the rest still shuddered whenever they managed to describe their ordeals, reliving the visions that had broken their concentration at last.

That much was expected. There was no shame in it - none save the students themselves brought, and that was the first subject to discuss before perception solidified into fact. Together, they shared what each had experienced, manifesting their fears with the intent of defusing them. Through the orb of aether which their teacher set spinning in the center of the room, they saw the same sparks of terror taking life again: lizards which opened fanged maws to breathe gouts of fire, roasted flesh sizzling with its own fats, skin replaced with blackened leather. Igeyorhm's fists balled helplessly on her knees when it came to be her turn, watching their instructor summon the shape of an onion and a needle of fire to painstakingly bore through it - only to erase the conjuration the moment that Igeyorhm began to cringe, shoulders hunching even as the boy next to her covered his face with a cry of mutual horror.

But in the afternoons, once they were released for practical exercises, she went back to the gardens and found the younger Mitron there each time, still working feverishly to pour out his imagination onto the page. He was getting better about organizing his sketches, now that he had an audience to be responsible to. Some of it, Igeyorhm guessed, was that he'd simply never had the practice in reviewing his existing ideas - only in coming up with new ones, as if enough attempts might complete one by sheer accident before he moved on to the next.

Slowly, the tide of half-finished drafts started congealing into a cohesive structure, following groupings of genus and species, ecological functions and predatory chains. Igeyorhm examined them all, tracing the fantastical shapes with a sense of perpetual wonder. Though she was not uneducated in hydrobiology, it was the templates for landbound creatures which she knew the best. All of Amaurot's students had been tasked with memorizing the strictures of zoology alongside every other branch of creation, building patterns which their minds could draw upon automatically - lungs, limbs, hearts - so that in the end, one could simply speak the word for _lion_, and know instinctively how both its blood and aether should circulate. Shaping a life with no knowledge of its requirements only resulted in an empty, disjointed bag of flesh and fluids, lacking any understanding of what it might need to eat, how it might have to move, and how it might interfere with other beings around it. A responsible creator did not bring concepts to life only to have them suffer from neglect. To do so was anathema.

Above all, Igeyorhm knew, you had to infuse your creation with the faith that it could live, that it _should _live, that it would be healthy and whole and intended to flourish. That love would give its form the vital strength it needed, knitting itself together around your conscious intent and manifesting from your will.

She had studied wavekin to what she had thought was an adequate degree of mastery - but compared to Mitron, she had barely tapped the surface. Each of his scribbled designs had a reason behind their fantastical shapes, far beyond mere whim; the ocean was a world all its own, with new laws for mass and gravity, nourishing creatures which were too fragile to survive on land. It also crushed anything which swam too deep. Built from a new language of pressures and densities, the ocean was a realm where even the most delicate, boneless creatures could thrive, drifting through a world where air had been replaced by water.

This was the specialty which Mitron had devoted himself to, cramming more and more hydrological formulas into his mind when other students were broadening out into aerodynamics, or metallurgy. His fascination with every form of aquatic life was grand enough to fill an entire classroom. Some afternoons, he did nothing but sketch out coral reefs, or draft out plans to influence the natural evolution of an octopus's camouflage. Other times, he would have smaller aether cubes ready - nothing vast enough to create a complex life, but mere training tools - and he would evoke the base masses into form so that they could both examine them from every angle, rainbow shells curving around the soft bodies of mollusks, circulatory systems linking the three hearts of a squid.

"Would you like to design one yourself?" he asked her one day, as she was marveling over the translucent construct of a jellyfish, its bell hanging in the air like a balloon.

Igeyorhm pulled her fingers back, taken off-guard by the invitation. "I don't know what I would draw at all. I lack the same sense of how they should work," she added with chagrin, glancing back towards the jellyfish as it rippled in an invisible current.

Mitorn regarded her with sympathy, waiting until she finished mulling over her own hesitations and had looked back over to him. "We could begin with fish," he suggested, tearing off a fresh sheet from his largest sketchbook and turning it towards her, offering her the graphite stick. "Draw the first shape which comes to mind. Don't worry if you haven't thought through the rest. The beginning is the most important."

Halfheartedly, she plucked the graphite from his hand, staring at the page in hopes that it would provide the inspiration for her. They had all been trained in the visualizations required to plan out the physical space that each form might take - or else everything they imagined would lack the proper dimensions, squashed and misshapen when viewed from any direction save the front - and she could easily plot out how much room might be needed for a fish of any proportions. Even so, Igeyorhm's first circle on the page was bland, lifeless. Then habit overtook her, compelling her to sketch out the companion arcs which delineated a sphere: a plain, basic polygon, with no identifying features.

She'd meant for the simplicity of the form as mere stubbornness, a sign she was giving up on the exercise before even properly starting - but looking at the finless, helpless shape on the page, Igeyorhm felt only shame, as if her concept had already manifested as a blob of flesh which knew that its creator had no intention of loving it. It wasn't her concept's fault that she felt reluctant. It was simply her own thoughtlessness.

She lowered the graphite, letting the edge smudge the page. "Will you help me?"

Mitron studied her sketch with what struggled to be a neutral expression, though his arched eyebrows defied that intention. After a few moments, he exhaled in a determined rush, and then nodded. "I've seen far stranger concepts in the archives," he reasoned. "All right. How do you see it fitting into an ecosystem? What is its intended role?"

Slowly, they filled in the basics of the idea together: Igeyorhm wildly adding every characteristic that she remembered liking from her ichthyological classes, Mitron supplying the science that could plausibly bring such a mismatched construct to life. Inspiration gradually trickled back to her as they worked, stumbling through half a dozen false starts that each threatened to terminate the concept completely. But, by the end of the day - as the soft murmur of Amaurotines trickled in on their evening strolls, and the streetlights rippled awake with hazy glows - there was a finished design on the pages, defying all her pessimistic expectations.

As Igeyorhm carefully brushed the last sketch clean, she paused to trace her hand over the breadth of the wavekin's shape. It wasn't what she had expected. Mitron's delicate linework had mixed unevenly with her own rough ideas, like spiderwebs delicately wrapping around heavy steel pillars. Billowing fins spread with the exuberance of a dancer's scarves; the whale seemed far too heavy for its decorations, more like a curious tadpole, or squat goldfish.

It wasn't what she had expected at all. Instead, something surprisingly endearing had risen out of what she had thought was an empty exercise - empty because _she_ had been empty. Her failure to best the Trial had left Igeyorhm expecting the same lack of success for anything else she had to perform, as if her life's worth was a linear path, wagered whole with each assignment.

But the wavekin under her fingers was a different matter. Affection seeped through her as she touched its bumbling form, its lines patiently waiting on the page for her to summon it into reality someday.

* * *

By the time the summer waned - warmer days giving way to autumn, green leaves surrendering to orange and gold - several of Igeyorhm's peers had already started to speak hopefully about their chances at retaking the tests in the next year. Surrounded by the comfort and optimism of their classrooms, fear had slowly transmuted into acceptance. From there, into courage.

For Igeyorhm's part, the period of reflection had done unexpectedly well for her. She was calmer than she expected as she summoned coins of fire for the group, holding her palm up to them and feeling their heat distantly through a protective shield. She had joined in as her peers had each described their individual terrors, shaping them in words first before successfully re-creating those same memories in aether. One girl had gripped Igeyorhm's fingers tight enough to bruise, nervously channeling boiling water into a carefully controlled stream that threatened to scald anyone who touched it. Afterwards - once she had remained calm enough to reverse the temperature back and forth at will - the girl had thrown her arms around Igeyorhm with equal force, hugging her in relief.

Igeyorhm should have been one of the first in her class to chatter eagerly away about her next attempt. Instead, she sat quietly when their teacher asked for a show of hands for those interested in submitting their requests. Intellectually, she could understand _how_ to hold her concentration firm through the distraction of pain - it hadn't been her strength of will which had failed her. She'd had enough confidence. But focusing on the pain itself had been enough to upend her concentration; the more that Igeyorhm had acknowledged it, the less she had been able to control her reactions.

The riddle of it seemed paradoxical. Deliberately ignoring a hazard was foolish. Doing nothing would only allow it to overwhelm her. Doing _something_ meant falling into its trap.

Mulling over the puzzle of it, she drifted to the usual meeting spot in the gardens, and picked listlessly at the threads of her robe as she waited.

Mitron was unexpectedly late. The skies had already started dimming before she heard the familiar rustle of his approach; as the hours had grown long, she had begun to wonderif he had been called directly back home after his classwork. Even stranger, there was only a single sketchbook tucked beneath the boy's arm by the time he made his way to her. An aether-infused bandage had been carefully wrapped around his throat, leaking the hues of an elementally-aspected weave: a healing spell meant to purify the air he breathed, she guessed, but the matrix was too complicated for her to understand the whole of yet.

Perplexed by his appearance, Igeyorhm straightened up from leaning against the tree. "Are you well?"

"Yes and no." Mitron's smile was lopsided as he plucked a leaf off his sleeve. His hair was even more calamitous than usual, pinned back in tufts to keep it away from his face. "Mostly yes. My ability to organize ideas has never been better - which is all thanks to _your_ help. But the physickers have recommended that I study at some of the western cities for a while, so I can be exposed to different biodiversities. Something other than oceans." His voice was rougher than normal; the explanation came when he finally touched his throat, rubbing gingerly at the cloth. Air aether trickled around his fingers, coiling in azure tendrils. "I've been accidentally putting gills on everything I've been shaping - including myself. Fortunately, an instructor found me in time, before I suffocated on dry land." He cocked his head in her direction, utterly unworried about the fate that had nearly claimed him. "What about you? Will you be going back to the Intermediate Trials again next year?"

The question nudged at Igeyorhm, even as she stood there blinking, trying to wrap her mind around all the surprises Mitron had unceremoniously dropped upon her. "Soon," she claimed, numbly. "I don't know if I've the skills for it yet. But if I keep dwelling on that idea, then it will become real for me as well. So I have to find the strength to try."

Mitron was watching her, oddly still for once: the corner of his mouth had turned up, even as his eyes were kind. "If anyone could best the Trials in just two rounds, it would be you." Pulling the sketchbook from underneath his arm, the boy tugged a single sheet free and offered it to her. "Here - as a symbol for good luck. It's cheering you on, too."

Igeyorhm accepted the page automatically, reorienting the sketch towards her. The elegance of the sketch's linework startled her; she had seen Mitron's artistry before, but now, it had been applied to her own idea. The whale in the center of the page was still recognizable as her creation - yet all the elements had been smoothed together in harmony, all the irregularities of its parts flawlessly melded together, as if the true design had been there all along and Mitron had simply erased away the clutter which had obscured it. Her idea looked more than possible now: it looked _beautiful_, as if every piece about it had been intended from the very start.

It had purpose. It had life.

She swallowed hard, struggling to find her voice in light of such a gift. "I never had a chance to ask you more about your own Trials," she began hesitantly, the memory finally surfacing now that they were running out of time. "I know you overcame them all eventually - but how did you finally manage it? Was there a trick you used for each one?"

Mitron only shook his head. "Nothing so complicated," he admitted. He rubbed at his temple, his fingertips catching in one of the clips holding his hair back, and yanking it askew. "When I went back to Water for a second time, I didn't keep to a clear focal image at _all_. Instead, I started thinking about how, once I finally mastered my work, I would be able to create so many things that could make our people happy." Lowering his hand, he frowned in consideration, as if he'd never bothered to analyze the memory at all - only to delight in the result. "I didn't think about _what_ I would be creating for them, or else there likely would have been fish all over the place again. Only how they would feel. How joyful they would be, once I shaped the aether properly. After that, the tasks themselves seemed easy. They were simply a means of getting to the other side."

At first, the words brushed past Igeyorhm's thoughts, slipping together in Mitron's fluid, ever-meandering voice. The sketchbook paper felt rough against her skin as she rubbed her thumb against it. Then the logic snapped together like the joints of a bridge, an alchemical reaction which lit up her mind like an entire city block, gleaming in the night.

_Oh, _she thought._ Of course._ For love.

Love was the force which had pulled Mitron forward through the tests. Not logic. Not resistance. She had done the same thing by reaching out to him when they had first met, forgetting her own misery when she'd thought he was giving up. Love for others gave you the strength to push on, past the anguish you were feeling now. It wasn't about fighting against the hurt itself, hoping to suppress or deny its very existence. It was about setting it aside, even temporarily, to choose something else that meant more to you instead. Love gave you the strength to forget your own pain for a little while - long enough to continue pressing ahead, to keep that greater goal burning even when you thought your very soul would crumble into ash first.

Mitron had continued to speak, unaware of her sudden revelation. "I know that you'll do amazing things, no matter where you end up. Architecture, or phytobiology or phantom creation, wherever your research takes you - "

"I'm joining the Convocation," she announced suddenly, interrupting him with a jolt. The ferocity of the challenge felt like a shout. She turned her unrelenting gaze back upon him, gripping the sketch tightly in her hand. "And I'll see you there too, won't I? After all, _you're _going to be the next Mitron. So there's no reason we won't meet again. You understand, right?"

It was Mitron's turn to be struck silent, blinking at the haste of her conviction. Then he straightened up, his shoulders and chin set crisply at attention. Delight glittered in his eyes.

"It's a promise," he agreed, breaking into a slow, broad grin. "We'll see each other there."

* * *

The instructor had smiled encouragingly at her as they sat down on either side of the testing table.

"What is your focal point?"

"A wavekin," Igeyorhm had replied briskly. "A whale."

* * *

There are even fewer of her creations alive when Igeyorhm returns to the Fourth.

She hadn't planned to visit again for at least a few centuries - long after the villages had sufficient time to complete their culling - but Lahabrea insisted on meeting her there before their next errand on the Source. Out of another chance to needle her, Igeyorhm assumes, feeling weary even as she knows she would do the same herself, were their positions reversed. Such jibes are beneath her, beneath them _all_, but the surviving Convocation members resort to them nonetheless. It is a dance which became tiresome centuries ago, even as it remains one of the few things keeping Igeyorhm afloat through her despair, not unlike Emet-Selch's needlessly complex mortal politics and Nabriales's collection of trophies.

Now she stands frowning at the ocean, wondering at which kind of new malice has chosen to sup upon her creatures as well.

She feels the aether stir behind her - Lahabrea, finally arrived to mock her at last - and ignores his presence resolutely. It's only when his hand extends into her field of vision that she blinks, and focuses on the shimmering sphere of liquid in his palm.

At first, there is nothing to see: only the soft pulsing of magic, forming a perfect orb of water which refracts the sun in splinters of light. Then Igeyorhm squints, drawing upon what little strength she has available in her sundered capacities. Even focusing directly on the aether itself, she nearly misses the crimson wisps radiating out from a minuscule life suspended in the center, floating in the water like a lost particle of dust.

"What _is_ it?" she asks despite herself, fascinated by the concept.

"A strain of algae, nearly identical to the ones already dwelling in these tides." Rolling the orb with deceptive carelessness along his palm, Lahabrea finally props it on his fingertips, balanced precariously against the leather of his glove. "The shrimp populations here have taken rather well to feeding upon it. And yet, those of mankind's ilk who have consumed them in turn have discovered a rather _foul _taste spreading across their tongues. It _appears_," he drawls, casting his gaze deliberately along the shoreline in the direction of the fishing villages, "that these wavekin may have lost their reputation as a delicacy rather permanently."

One more glimpse at the ocean proves the truth of his words. Now that Igeyorhm knows what to look for, she can spot the new changes in the sea's aetheric levels, adjusting around populations which are no longer skewed to bursting. The whales have thinned, true - but through the natural process of equalization, not genocide.

Balance has returned to this small corner of the seas. Her creatures remain a part of it.

Such precise interference can be no accident. Even Emet-Selch's Allagans would have struggled with such delicacy, and their works are an entire star away. The conclusion is unmistakable.

"You created something for me," Igeyorhm acknowledges softly. "I thought you didn't design anything new anymore, Lahabrea."

Lahabrea looks away gracelessly, as if body language could so simply blind her to the facts. "I don't." Blunt enough to be a warning, he wastes the opportunity for escape by instantly explaining further. "The design is Emet-Selch's. I merely described the desired outcome - the specifications of function, size, ecological behaviors and impacts, barely the basics. Gift _him _the credit, if you've a mind to praise its maker. And these measures won't last forever," he warns, glancing over at her as if seeking to kill any gratitude in advance. "Best to rejoin this shard before the last of your hopes are wasted."

Such technicalities are as flimsy as a bolt of poorly-spun cloth. Asking favors from Emet-Selch would have meant weathering his skepticism in turn, openly inviting even further mockery from their kind. She can only imagine what had compelled Lahabrea to accept such an undertaking -

Except, like a dying whisper of a song, or a poem with only one line remaining, she _does_ know.

She knows exactly why Lahabrea took action to help her.

It was the same reason she had reached out to Mitron, so many millennia ago. It was what had urged Mitron onwards in turn, driving him to endanger himself even as he had crafted dreams for their people. Underneath everything that has been forced upon them since the sundering, the agonies they have carried and losses they still weep from - despite how all the members of the Convocation have been taking out their own despair upon one another for centuries, they are still Ascians. They are still of Amaurot.

There are reasons to reach past pain, she thinks. Those reasons have never changed.

She digs for that same strength inside herself, pushing aside the risk of vulnerability - all the habits built up from centuries of hostilities, all the ruts they have fallen into where kindness only serves as a razor-sharp reminder of everything they have lost. She reaches past all those barriers for the outcome she knows that she wants. It is a far cry from the gestures of their homeland. But perhaps this is the best way they can express these things in their current reality, one that has been split fourteen ways: where their people have changed into strange shapes and forced to swim in different pressures, remade into destroyers circling in the dark. These are the kinds of creatures they are now, in realms where generosity has been replaced by condescension, and where they have learned to breathe a bitterness thicker than air.

But it is not all they are.

"'Tis fine work," she manages. It feels as if the words choke her, but she's already come this far. She can make it the rest of the way. "It is... masterfully done, Lahabrea."

Lahabrea visibly startles, shooting her a darting glance before he can control his reaction; he opens his mouth and shuts it again just as rapidly. Before she can read the rest of his expression past his mask, he turns away, physically blocking her gaze - but his hands shift, both of them coming up to cup the aether orb protectively between his palms, as if he is only just now allowing himself to care for his own creation.

"It is nothing, compared to what it should be." The syllables are carefully delivered, so quiet that they can both pretend his voice is merely the sound of the waves: an illusion, and thereby dismissible. "I will... craft a better solution for them someday, after Amaurot is restored. Once our star is healed. When we've the time for such affairs."

Igeyorhm nods. She keeps her own eyes forward, towards the ocean and the endless potential waiting in its depths. "I'll look for you there, then," she agrees. "I'll find you once we're home again, Lahabrea - in another world from here."


End file.
